Screen Writer

Moview have a new portal of call, writes DONALD CLARKE

THE relationship between movies and the new digital media has been troubled. One thinks of an ageing parent arguing with his or her tattooed offspring: “If you keep at that MySpace thing you’ll stunt your growth,” Father Film moans. “Oh God! What’s MySpace? It’s Twitter! Why can’t you bloody leave me alone?”

Why indeed? Well, Old Man Cinema has always worried about upstart rivals. He wants to ensure that the new media – whether TV, video or internet – remembers to promote its distinguished predecessor, but he worries that the rival portal might offer something so seductive that cinema finally becomes obsolete.

The latest concern is the new generation of handheld devices.

A recent deal between Warner Bros and Facebook has gone some way to ensuring that old-school feature films will have a home on those iPad things. Who doesn't want to first encounter a great motion picture on a screen the size of a biscuit tin? Boring old bastards, that's who. 2001: A Space Odysseyreally is at its best when compacted into a concentrated postage stamp. Heck, every artwork – the epic paintings of Géricault, the operas of Wagner, the novels of Dostoevsky – should henceforth be consumed in bite-sized form.

Where was I? Oh yes. Over the past few weeks, 20th Century Fox has had a notable success in its efforts to colonise the new electronic oblongs. Only your mum and David Cameron think the time-eating game involving conflict between intemperate birds and blasé pigs is still at the cutting edge of digital entertainment. There is, however, no doubt that Angry Birdsremains hugely popular.

In the space of a month or two, some 10 million punters have downloaded a variation of the game based on Fox's passable animated feature Rio.That's some achievement. Before the movie even opens, a mass of people, similar in size to the population of Belgium, have acquainted itself with Rio'sjolly avian characters. Most of them have, moreover, paid for the privilege (a reasonable 99 cent).

The low-priced iGame offers film studios endless possibilities for creative promotion. Variations on established hits can be knocked out and distributed instantly throughout the digital marketplace. To this point, association between videogames and movies has been fraught with compromise. Nearly three decades ago the folk behind ETdelivered the first great turkey of the videogame age. The tie-in games cost millions to develop, but inevitably end up as tedious, mildly interactive walkthroughs of the movie. (Once in a while, of course, as with GoldenEye, the game ends up being better respected than the film.)

Now, however, it looks as if – for the moment anyway – the film studios have managed to merge interests with their rivals in the handheld universe. I can't wait for The King's Speechedition of Plants vs Zombies. It should be here in time for the DVD release.